Darts Champion 'Tore Up' PDC Contract After World Championship To Play In New Event
The PDC were forced to issue a statement on the matter.
Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Darts, World Darts Championship
Ryan Smart
Topics: Darts, World Darts Championship
A former darts champion quit the PDC after the World Championship in order to play in a new tournament.
The PDC - originally known as the World Darts Council (WDC) - was formed after a breakaway of top players from the BDO in 1992.
The likes of Phil Taylor, Dennis Priestley, John Lowe and Eric Bristow all made the move over to the PDC, though played at the 1993 BDO World Championship before committing to its new PDC equivalent in 1994.
Another player to make the switch across was Bob Anderson, who won the BDO title for the first and only time in 1988.
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Nicknamed 'The Limestone Cowboy', Anderson won seven major singles titles in a three-year stint between 1986 and 1989.
Anderson and the England team, meanwhile, won five overall titles across WDF World Cup and Euro Cup competitions between 1986 and 1992.
After joining the PDC, Anderson did not win another major, though made six quarter-finals and a semi-final before the turn of the century.
In 2004, the now 56-year-old Anderson launched a surprise run to the World Championship semi-final, defeating three-time runner-up Peter Manley before losing 6-0 to Kevin Painter.
He repeated the feat a year later, this time losing to Taylor in the last four.
In April 2008, Anderson signed up for the League of Legends tour, which consisted of fellow darts icons Bristow, Lowe, Keith Deller and Cliff Lazarenko among others.
His PDC contract prevented him from competing on the tour, but the PDC subsequently issued a statement confirming that they had decided to release him from his contract to enable him to play.
"The PDC players contract prohibits individual players or groups of players appearing in any competitive televised darts event not under the control of the PDC," the statement read.
"Of the announced players on the Legends Tour, only Bob Anderson has a current contract with the PDC. Notwithstanding the fact that he has signed a legally enforceable two-year contract, we have agreed with Bob to tear up his contract and let him act as a free agent."
Anderson, 61, made it to the final of the inaugural League of Legends event, before defeating Deller 10-4 with a tournament-high average of 91 to win the trophy.
He continued to play darts on the World Seniors Tour, eventually calling time on his professional career in 2023 at the age of 75.
Anderson is now an ambassador for the seniors tour, a role he assumed immediately after his retirement.
Speaking to Online Darts after his final match at the World Seniors Masters, he said: "It's been a long career, and it's had plenty of high spots. It was the right time for me to retire.
"I'm proud to have been part of it [the Seniors] and to be asked to take part, which is nice.
"I wish I'd have done a little better over the last three years, but I didn't. And that's testimony to the fact that I'm just too old now.
"I have to accept that, and as tough as it is to accept, I have to accept it. I've come to terms with it, and I don't like it, but I've had to come to terms with it."